


flowers blooming

by Aisu



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Angst, M/M, Other, internalized transphobia (minor), misgendering by self?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 06:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14587425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisu/pseuds/Aisu
Summary: Will is still searching the Sea of Fragments for a happy ending.Meanwhile, Lion is starting to doubt what that means.Short postgame piece reflecting on Lion.





	flowers blooming

**Author's Note:**

> He/him pronouns used for Lion here not because they're correct and more because of the point of view being a Lion who has no idea what "nonbinary" means. (Ask me about my elaborate Lion gender feelings!)

The flowers are always in full bloom.

It’s one of the things Lion’s noticed in the months since moving in with Will. For the most part, this place has been different than he expected - more real, less perfect. He remembers blinking, mouth agape, when Will had explained to him that he’d somehow made a fortune off heavenly real estate investments. They go grocery shopping. They have tea with Dlanor as she discusses the latest office politics. The world runs on like anywhere else.

But the flowers are always blooming like it’s the height of spring, and no matter how often Lion looks, he never sees any that are in anything but perfect health.

He checks often, now. Like a reminder to himself.

He’s crouched out in the manor garden by a bed of forget-me-nots when he hears the footsteps coming up the gravel path. Immediately, he turns, smiling a little as he sees Will come into sight. For the moment the flowers are forgotten.

“No luck today,” Will says.

Lion’s smile fades.

“Sorry. Tomorrow.” Will shrugs, approaching. “Gardening?”

“Something like that.” Lion shrugs, standing and brushing the dirt off his pants. “Do you need me to come with you tomorrow?”

Will shakes his head, glancing at the patio and clicking his tongue. A streak of white flashes from around the corner, resolving into a purring Diana as she begins to nuzzle against Will’s leg. “There’s things you wouldn’t want to see.”

Lion shrugs. “I doubt you want to see them either, but you still have to. It only seems fair.” He does his best to sound airy, light.

Will looks at him, for a moment. “...do you actually want to?”

Hesitation. Uncertainty. He should be strong. Should be brave.

“...I don’t.”

“Figured.” Will sighs, going to settle onto the bench on the porch. Diana curls up in his lap, purring. “I promised you this, and I’m going to hold to it. I’ll find you your happy ending, and you’ll go home.”

Lion settles next to him, thinking about Will, standing out in the center of the sea of fragments. Manually picking them out, one by one, scanning them over in detail - he can’t see the possibilities like Bernkastel. It’s only special approval that got him access at all.

He wonders how many times Will has seen some version of Lion work to end it all in their grief and pain and bitter rage.

Wonders how many times Will has seen some version of Lion die, by their own hands or by the hands of someone that should have cherished them.

“...you don’t have to,” he says softly, then follows it up. “Tomorrow, we can… go out to the park. Bring along Cornelia, maybe, it’s been a while. There’s that tea place that we’ve wanted to try…”

Will makes a noncommittal noise, shaking his head. “I’ll just skim a few, and we can do something after.”

“You…” But Lion trails off, staring at the polished boards beneath them.

There’s silence for a moment, before Will speaks again.

“If you just keep sitting there thinking and not saying anything, you’ll get a headache.”

Lion can’t help but smile weakly at that. “It’s just…”

But there’s no good way to put it in words. To sum up his fears. That even if they find his happy ending, it could still end at any moment. That Kyrie could be driven to his death by the slightest motivation. That Natsuhi’s resentment, held back for nineteen years, could return. That any of his family would conspire with killers for money, for power, for a grudge.

That with the slightest change, his could be the hands holding the gun.

“If… do you know how it’ll work? When we find it? Will I remember everything that happened here?” And that’s its own fear - not only that he’ll be among wolves, but that he won’t know.

And other things, too. Things he’s learned. He remembers himself, before, the boy that didn’t know the names of his own servants, that thought that a passing bit of humiliation was the worst that could happen to him, that didn’t have gratitude for his life and everything in it. He wasn’t cruel, but he was unknowing, and that was a cruelty of its own.

(And there are selfish things he’s learned. The joy of kissing someone you love and not caring who may see. The strange flash of confused feelings - jealousy, want - that he’d had when he’d learned that in some world he’d been able to live as a woman and a man at once, even with all the guilt that jealousy brought him. Things he’s still learning, still slowly untangling and understanding. Things he doesn’t want to lose.)

“I don’t,” Will says, flatly. “Frankly, you’re a strange case. Always have been. I don’t know what it’ll be like when you go back.” He smiles, then, at Lion, that smile that always feels warm and safe. “But I believe in you. You know that. You’re going to live and make her proud.”

Lion nods, slowly. Wondering. Wondering what he’ll be like, someday, as the patriarch of the Ushiromiyas, having learned piece by bitter piece about the darkness underneath without anyone to guide him through and show him how to still love.

He wonders if she’ll still be proud if he ends up like their grandfather.

“And if we never find it?” he says, slowly lifting his head a little.

Will shrugs. “We’ll find it. And until we do, well, I’ll have a great badminton coach and a sore backside.” A smirk.

Lion smirks back, leaning in to kiss Will, warm, soft, even as he shifts his hand closer. “Well, if you insist…”

Will yelps, starling Diana off of him, and Lion lets himself laugh.

When he’d heard the truth of the Golden Land, he’d wondered how any fantasy could be worth giving up reality for.

Now, as he leans in for another, longer kiss, he closes his eyes and lets himself forget that the flowers are still blooming.


End file.
